Articles

If you've seen the 2011 documentary Happy, you'll already be familiar with the notion that helping others is essential to our own happiness. People who are kind to others report lower levels of stress, are less lonely on average, and may even live longer than those who choose not to prioritize giving back to others. This article from the Wall Street Journal explores why all of these things are true, and they provide a few examples of things that people can do to give back even now.

I first heard about this essay while listening to an episode of "Unlocking Us" with Brené Brown. Your "Surge Capacity" is a collection of adaptive mental and physical systems that humans draw on for short-term survival during periods of stress, such as natural disasters, active shooter events, terrorist attacks, etc. The problem is that these systems aren't meant to keep running for months on end, as has been the case with the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay also explores the mental fatigue that accompanies long-term stress and anxiety exposure, as well as provides some tips for coping with these feelings while we wait for the vaccine.

A good friend of mine sent me this short essay before I started my IOP. Katie (the author) also participated in a intensive outpatient program in Charlotte. I think Katie does a good job of explaining the deeply personal (and yet somehow universal experience) of depression in this piece.

Big disclaimer here: I am not a working mother. I am not even a mother. But this comic does an excellent job of explaining how women (and mothers in particular) take on the majority of planning and stress in their day-to-day lives. What it all boils down to is that while women are expected to do their fair share of the work, they also face the pressure of being the one that everyone else looks to for instructions on how to pull their own weight. Mothers carry the burden of expected omniscience: They must organize, plan, coordinate, motivate, deploy, clean up afterwards and then do it all over again the next day. This is the Mental Load.

This piece and it's sequel, Depression Part Two, were written and illustrated by Allie Brosh in 2011, and were eventually published in her 2013 book, Hyperbole and a Half. It was the first time that I had ever seen someone speak so openly (and with so much humor) about what it's like to live with depression.

Depression Part 2 is the sequel to Adventures in Depression, and in my opinion, it does a better job of explaining how depression feels and why it's so hard to explain to other people if they've never experienced depression firsthand.